


True love follows you everywhere

by orphan_account



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, much dog, slice of life fluff, very woof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 13:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7936885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Emil is introduced to the Norwegian tradition of keeping a hunting dog, he meets an old friend he has not seen in a very long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True love follows you everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> I started out with the head-canon that Emil has two German shepherds with bricks for brains back in his home-town. This has now blossomed into the idea that he has a Vallhund and an Elkhound, both of whom are relatively smart and love him like crazy. I'm just testing this headcanon out. Pardon the unsolicited slice of life fic.

In Dalsnes, there is a long tradition of using animals. While cats may be a man’s best colleague the dog remains a best friend. The scouts of Norway are noted among their foreign counterparts (and often mocked) for having a dog accompany them on all missions where possible. Of course, to avoid infection by Rash, these dogs must be trained never to bite trolls or ingest their bodily matter.

“Then what’s the point in having a dog if it’s so dangerous to the dog?” asks Emil.

The year is 91. It is the first few months of the new year and the ice of the winter has yet to completely melt. Puddles line the streets and fill the occasional pot-holes. Senior and junior warriors alike can be found gathered around the deepest, goading each other into jumping in to see how far the water will come up to on them.

“Well it’s a tradition for one thing.” says Sigrun, side-stepping a patch of ice “And it’s a real morale booster. As cheerful as we Norwegians seem, we still suffer from the same melancholy the other nations get in the winter months. And the survivor’s guilt. Gods, this place becomes a hot-bed of angst and PTSD symptoms from September onwards, so dogs help to liven the place up a bit. Besides, if someone didn’t take in dogs then they’d all go feral and leak in from the infected areas and just spread the Rash all over the place.”

“Dogs are expensive to keep.” Emil points out “They eat stuff and crap on everything if they aren’t trained properly.”

“Do you hate dogs or something?”

He throws his hands up in a gesture of surrender “Gods, no! I love dogs. I miss having dogs around. But I’m just trying to see the bonus of having dogs around? I mean, they aren’t small like cats. They don’t have the natural immunity either.”

“And they don’t get infected by the air-borne strain like cats don’t. It comes in through bites and swallowing pieces of dead troll. Some dogs have immunity entirely. They’re like us, except they can handle a little more of the Rash than our non-immunes can.”

Emil shakes his head “I guess that makes sense.”

“Hey, you wanna come down to the vet’s with me? I’ve gotta go over there to see about a hunting dog.”

“A hunting dog?”

“You know. To chase stuff. I’ll tell you one thing- they’re really good at telling you which piece of game is safe to hunt and which one has a latent case of the Rash.”

Emil does not need that much more persuasion. From what Sigrun has seen of him over the winter, she thought she is dealing with a devoted cat-lover, but apparently he is one of those near-mythical people who harbours an intense love for both species? And people who act like those species? Well, he definitely isn’t in love with Reynir, but he certainly appreciates Reynir’s jovial company a lot more than Sigrun was ever able to bring herself to.  
As they pass yet another new recruit being fished out of an icy pit by laughing colleagues, Sigrun starts to explain about the dogs. She for some reason feels the need to explain herself and the Norwegian military’s reasoning, like Emil has stumbled across some fault-line in their security and thinking that she absolutely must correct. 

“Mostly it’s vallhunds and spitz breeds and all that that we use for hunting. The elkhounds, the odd wolfhound, some half-wolf mutts, some malamutes and huskies. Anything but a cold weather dog gets damned crotchety if you try to send it out into the field during the winter, even if they have sweaters.”

“Sweaters.” repeats Emil.

“Yeah, sweaters. For the short-haired guys. The mutts without enough fur to keep most of the cold out.”

“Who makes these sweaters?” asks Emil, his eyes bright with amusement.

“The dogs’ owners do. Yeah, yeah, big burly soldiers with battle scars and near-death experiences under their belt sit around and knit doggy sweaters. It’s hilarious.”

“It really is. I’m sorry, but it is.”

Suddenly, a spray of cold water falls over both them. Sigrun lets out a small roar of shock and rage, and Emil yelps like a small, disgruntled fawn and covers his face.

“Watch that ice water!” she snaps at the group responsible- a bunch of men, none of whom are under six feet, all bearded and varying degrees of soaked.

“Sorry Captain!” one of the men gives her a clumsy, numb salute “It’s just that your little pet seems a bit too comfortable, you know? Can’t afford to let a softie Swede die out here and make us look bad!”

Sigrun looks at Emil with warning in her eyes. He has to act now and it had better be a damn snappy come-back.

But in the place of the ancient wisdom Sigrun is expecting out of his mouth, Emil parts the curtains of his wet hair, his eyes smouldering, and whips forward like a lightning bolt before the men can even finish laughing. With a powerful kick to the saluting man’s gut he sends the bearded giant splashing into the water butt-first. The hole swallows the man up to his knees and torso, so he’s stuck in there, folded in half, and only able to pound his arms up and down on the wet road like a giant toddler trapped in his high-chair.

Emil scrapes his hair from his face “You seem to be able to make yourself look bad without my help.”  
Then he pivots on his heel and stalks off in the direction of the vet.

Rendered speechless with pride, Sigrun can only flash the soldiers her broadest, most shit-eating grin before she turns to catch up with Emil.

 

Inside the vet’s, the first order of business is to warm up. The vet passes them two towels Sigrun suspects are just one wash from a dog’s bath. She makes Emil take off his jacket and packs him into her slightly less damp cloak, ignoring his protests, then towels his hair off too.

The vet, a large man known to all as Scary Sven (to differentiate between Tall Sven, Angry Sven, Gay Sven and Married Sven), is charmed by this little display of comerarderie.  
He leans over the front desk with a smile “You know, Captain, when I heard that you’d taken a Swede under your wing I thought they were going to be a massive Viking abomination. To meet such a well-mannered young man is a breath of fresh air out here. What should I call you, young man?”

“Emil is fine.” says Emil from the depths of the towel “Sig, that’s enough, now you’re just pulling my head around now.”

Once Sigrun is satisfied that Emil will not catch his death, and she has borrowed Scary Sven’s jacket to protect herself from the same, they head into the back of the office. These kennels are a far cry from what the old world knew. Mainly for the complete lack of kennels.  
Instead of the cages or plexiglass enclosures that would have been used before, a row of bedding lines the edge of each wall. Dogs are free to roam around the massive hall. Several raised structures serve as obstacles to run around, jump off of and climb on top of to bay the mastery of the achievement to the assembly below.

Emil does not think he has ever seen a happier place. No sooner than when they step inside is Scary Sven charged by about fifteen different dogs. The enormous man braces himself against the onslaught of joyful yelps and wagging tails and slobbering tongues, but is finally knocked down on his rear when a gigantic dog Emil can only assume is some kind of bear-dire wolf cross-breed leaps into his open arms.

“Wow.” breathes Emil, as an errant puppy trips over his foot and begins to attack the laces in retaliation.

“Yeah. Warms the heart, doesn’t it? I love dogs. I used to have a hunting dog when I was your age.”

Emil’s face falls “How did she die?”

Sigrun rolls her eyes “Em, not everything I love dies a horrible death. She’s not dead. Elsie’s retired! She worked with me until two years ago, then I had to retire the old girl. She just couldn’t take the hunt like she used to. And for crying out loud she hunted with me for a full decade. If I were her age in dog years I wouldn’t even have gotten out of bed at eight.”

“So!” a chipper voice rises from the writhing mass of happy dogs, then a thick arm, then the man hefts himself out of the heap and rises with a single pug clinging to the front of his apron “What can I do for you, Captain Eide?”

“Emil’s gonna be here for the summer. Probably right on through to the next winter. Now, I’m a wonderful person and all, but he’s going to need another companion, and everyone his age have already ostracised him for being too pretty or some shallow teenaged shit like that.”

He buries his face in his hands, red as a ruby, and hisses “You are so embarrassing.”

She pats him on the head “Also, he’s a Cleanser by trade. He basically knows when he’s about to die, but that’s almost it. I need a dog that’ll keep an eye out for him.”

Scary Sven returns the pug to the ground, but comes up with a mastiff’s paw on his sleeve “So you want something companionable but aggressively protective?”

“You make the poor dog sound like my ex!”

They both roar with laughter. Emil is again transfixed by the puppy attacking his shoelaces.  
By the time the other two have finished congratulating each other for the fabulous joke, another dog has taken notice of the debacle. It trots over with an expression of mild interest. Then, laying eyes on Emil, this expression becomes intense. The dog breaks into a full charge which Emil notices only in time to nudge the puppy out of the way, lest it get in the way of the dog’s charge.

Like a long-lost sibling, the dog flings itself into Emil’s arms. He catches it smoothly. The movement is muscle memory. Something he used to do when he returned home, every single day, from when he was fifteen to when he left Östersund at seventeen. 

“Ah, shit, sorry about that one.” says Scary Sven “She’s a hugger.”

Emil stares at the dog in rapturous wonder. The dog licks him upside the face, snuffling all over his face frantically.

“What do you know? The dog is like my ex.” remarks Sigrun.

“Vala!”

“What? No, his name was Farouk.”

“No, this is Vala! This is my dog!”

Emil sits down heavily and pushes the dog back a little to better inspect her, but she isn’t having any of it, and pops her paws on his shoulders.

“Hey, Vala, what’s my name?”

The dog makes an unholy yipping noise.

“What’s my address?”

This time, the noise sounds uncannily like ‘Östersund’ with a few squeaks mixed in.

“Who do you love, Vala?”

At this, the dog, undoubtedly Vala, launches a fresh attack and smothers his face with doggy-kisses. Emil is bowled over. The elkhound paws at him and jumps all around him in delight and never once lets up on the barrage with her tongue.

Meanwhile, Sigrun and Scary Sven can only stare at each other in amazement.

“This is his dog?” Scary Sven points to the mess on the ground.

“Apparently? But how the Hel did she get here?”

“She’s a new arrival. Two weeks gone since she came in! Scouts found her hale as a plough-horse, wandering the wastes on the border. They knew I needed more good, solid cold-weather breeding stock, so they brought her back to me.” Scary Sven cups his chin in a thoughtful manner “Where did he live?”

“Östersund, in Sweden.”

“I heard they had a wall fall there last year. I bet this dog escaped the safe areas then and wandered her way over here. Animals do this all the time, you know. Ever since we got back to our gods the bond between man and animal has grown more apparent. She might have sensed him, or sensed where he was going to be and followed him here. Obviously she loves him like crazy.”

“Vala! No kisses! No, Vala, I’m dying!”

Sigrun looks between Scary Sven and Emil a few times, processing the information.

“So she’s healthy?”

“Immune, I’d say.”

“And how is she with hunting?”

“I haven’t had the time to test her completely, but I think her abilities are average. They will be above average with enough training.”

Sigrun folds her arms across her chest “Well that’s it, I guess. Damn. I was hoping to name the dog myself. Something badass like Gramr.”

Scary Sven cocks a pitted eyebrow “The last dog you had you called Elsie, right?”

“Hey! Elsie is a badass name, for a badass dog! My girl once took down an infected grizzly with a single bite, did you know that?”

“I thought that was you.”

“Emil! Get up. Let’s get the papers done on Vala here.”

 

Four months later, Tuuri arrives in Dalsnes and is met at the train-station by an unlikely looking pair. There is Emil. Strapping (more so than when she last saw him), standing a little taller, smiling a lot more confidently when he sees her, and the strength she can feel when they go in for a hug is almost equal to her own. No small feat, considering Tuuri spends a lot of her time lifting heavy tools and moving engines twice her body weight.

“Damn!” she announces when they break apart “Look at you!”

“You look good as well. Time for a haircut yet?”

“Oh, this? Well I thought I’d let it grow a bit. My head looks like a rabbit’s belly, doesn’t it?”  
Tuuri is about to tell him how Lalli is getting on (impatiently, as the time for him to come to Dalsnes next month apparently never seemed further away when he said goodbye at the train station in Mora), when she feels a small, polite pressure on her thigh.  
She looks down and sees the grey paw of a beautiful elkhound dog resting on her trousers.

“Oh!” she exclaims.

The dog’s tail wags.

“And who is this?”

“Sit, Vala.” the dog sits “This is my hunting partner. She followed me all the way from Sweden.”

“That sounds like an interesting story. Well, how do you do Ms Vala?” Tuuri extends a hand as if to shake the dog’s paw.  
Surprisingly, a paw is popped into her palm. The dog bobs her paw up and down enthusiastically.

Tuuri grins to herself. The dog is adorable. Looks like Lalli is going to have some fierce competition for Emil’s attention when he arrives next month.


End file.
